2. Building Simple Sentences
Each coloured brick represents a different part of a sentence.
Subject
Verb
Object
With just two or three of these starting blocks, you can make simple sentences, such as:
The girl
brushed
her hair. or
Fido
barked.
Let’s practise making some simple sentences together.

3. Building SV and SVO Sentences
Using just two or three of the bricks below, how many different SV and SVO sentences can you make? or
Linda
George
bit
cooked
twelve stories
the food
The trees
Queen Anne
chewed
read
her finger
a ball
My dad
Three dogs
wrote
kicked
an octopus
four lollies
A kitten
Most shops
prepared
stole
a meal
one treat
Share one of your simple sentences with a friend. Does it contain the correct combination of building blocks?

4. Those Pesky Determiners
Before we go any further with improving our simple sentences, we need to talk about determiners. Determiners are words that come before a noun. They introduce the noun and give the reader important information about it. Some examples are:
the
trees
two
dogs my
dad
her
finger an
octopus

5. Improving Simple Sentences
Once you have a simple sentence, you can use other bricks to make it more interesting to the reader.
Why not add an adjective to describe any nouns or pronouns in the sentence?
This will turn a simple sentence such as...
adjective
The girl
brushed
her hair.
... into a sentence like:
The
little
girl
brushed
her
curly
hair.
When you use an adjective to describe a noun, the adjective sneaks between the determiner and the noun.

6. Click here to reveal some cheeky little helpers if you get stuck.
Sneaky Adjectives
Can you think of adjectives to describe the nouns below and sneak them in between the determiner and the noun?
tasty
delicious
sturdy
strong
grey
humongous
towering
bushy
Click here to reveal some cheeky little helpers if you get stuck.
The ?
trees
Some ?
sweets
The ?
elephant
Four ?
castles
Talk to your partner. Could I add more than one adjective between the determiner and the noun?

7. Slightly Exciting Sentences
Can you include an adjective between every noun and its determiner to make these sentences a little bit more exciting?
are
watching
The
boys a
football match.
Two
ducks
ate
some
bread. A
clown
juggled
five
balls.

8. Adding a Little More Excitement
Once you’ve added adjectives to describe the nouns, why not add an adverb to describe the verb?
Think about how the action is happening and include an adverb to give the reader more information.
adverb
The
little
girl
brushed
her
curly
hair.
The
little
girl
carefully
brushed
her
curly
hair.
An adverb usually goes before the verb that it describes.

9. Click here to reveal some cheeky little helpers if you get stuck.
Awesome Adverbs
Can you think of adverbs to describe the verbs below?
Can you think of more than one adverb which could go with each verb?
ran
Click here to reveal some cheeky little helpers if you get stuck.
happily
angrily
quickly
crossly
carefully
neatly
dangerously
bravely ? ?
cut ?
walked ?
jumped ?
wrote ?
smiled

10. Slightly More Exciting Sentences
Can you include an adverb in these sentences to make them even more exciting?
mum
washed
hands. My
her
lovely
dirty
boys
kicked
leaves.
Some
the
playful
orange
Tired
Anita
ate a
delicious
Sandwich..

11. Now let’s take it one step further by adding a fronted adverbial.
Spicing Things Up!
Now let’s take it one step further by adding a fronted adverbial.
A fronted adverbial is a word, phrase or clause at the beginning of a sentence to give more information about the action. They are always followed by a comma.
fronted
adverbial
The
little
girl
carefully
brushed
her
curly
hair.
In the morning
The
little
girl
carefully
brushed
her
curly
hair.

12. Adding Amazing Adverbials
Can you start these sentences with a fronted adverbial to give the reader more information about when, where, how or how often the action took place?
the
exciting
circus
sadly
left
our
small
town.
shy
Jakub
nervously
started
his
new
school.
many
noisy
seagulls
hungrily
pecked
the
soggy
breadcrumbs.

13. It’s Getting Hot in Here!
Your sentences are getting mighty spicy! Let’s turn up the heat even further by using a conjunction to add another clause.
Use a co-ordinating or subordinating conjunction to add another clause to your sentence which will give the reader all the information they need to fully understand what is happening.
conjunction
and clause
In the morning,
the
little
girl
carefully
brushed
her
curly
hair.
In the morning,
the
little
girl
carefully
brushed
her
curly
hair
because it was tangled.

14. Cracking Conjunctions
Can you add a co-ordinating or subordinating conjunction to these sentences to give the reader extra information about the action?
campers
hiked to
tents
the
weary
sodden
slowly
Completely exhausted,
their
Obviously angry,
frustrated
Salim
firmly
slammed
the
wooden
door
Suddenly,
the
mysterious
noise
scarily
echoed in
the
massive
cave

15. Building Sentences
Let’s look at how our sentence has changed just by adding a few different bricks.
We started off with...
The girl
brushed
her hair.
...and have transformed it into:
In the morning,
the
little
girl
carefully
brushed
her
curly
hair
because it was tangled.
Why is the second sentence better?
Which would a reader enjoy more? Why?

16. so that his bones stayed strong. conjunction and clause
Scorching Sentences
Can you transform this boring sentence in just three minutes?
Use the building blocks below to help you.
some milk.
The boy
drank
Every day,
the
clever
boy
hurriedly
drank
some
fresh
milk
so that his bones stayed strong.
start
stop
subject
verb
object
determiner
adjective
adverb
fronted
adverbial
conjunction and clause

17. because he had nothing else to do. conjunction and clause
Scorching Sentences
Can you transform this boring sentence in just three minutes?
Use the building blocks below to help you.
Simon
watched
the TV.
Each morning,
bored
Simon
silently
watched
the
ancient TV
because he had nothing else to do.
start
stop
subject
verb
object
determiner
adjective
adverb
fronted
adverbial
conjunction and clause

18. as his life was in danger. conjunction and clause
Scorching Sentences
Can you transform this boring sentence in just three minutes?
Use the building blocks below to help you.
Samson
attacked
the lion.
Heroically,
fearless
Samson
bravely
attacked
the
ferocious
lion
as his life was in danger.
start
stop
subject
verb
object
determiner
adjective
adverb
fronted
adverbial
conjunction and clause

19. so she could see how her class had done. conjunction and clause
Scorching Sentences
Can you transform this boring sentence in just three minutes?
Use the building blocks below to help you.
The teacher
marked
the books.
After school,
the
dedicated
teacher
carefully
marked
the
thick
books
so she could see how her class had done.
start
stop
subject
verb
object
determiner
adjective
adverb
fronted
adverbial
conjunction and clause

20. conjunction and clause
Start Building
Can you write sentences which will fit with the following patterns of bricks?
subject
verb
object
determiner
adjective
adverb
fronted
adverbial
conjunction and clause